Writer and Director: Rachael Savage
Focusing on urban loneliness and feeling misunderstood, Rachael Savage’s 70-minute show Boy on the Roof establishes an unexpected connection across a generational divide between neighbours who barely acknowledge each other’s existence. Performed at Shoreditch Town Hall as part of MimeLondon, the performers’ facially detailed but expressionless masks mean that storytelling comes through gesture, movement and body language to create an affecting impression of real life.
When Liam’s report card reveals a distracted and academically challenged teenage boy, his father becomes increasingly frustrated with his son’s nervous habits and lack of attention. Next door, OAP Albert spends his days alone with only a photograph of his dead wife for company and little connection to the modern world until trying to figure out a smartphone brings Albert and Liam together and an unlikely bond develops.
The technical presentation of Savage’s show is particularly delightful, blending live-action performances from a three-strong cast playing multiple roles with video segments and animation that creates the context for the story. Daniel Hill’s projection design tours different houses in the street, taking the audience momentarily inside to see both the characters we know and other local residents living dissonantly cheek by jowl as video inserts. From a football-loving nurse to the single dad with an eternally crying baby and the teenagers rehearsing for their band, the intensity of these separate lives is interestingly conveyed.
And Hill brings that idea to videoed scenes through the windows of Albert and Liam’s homes in which characters amusingly pass by, waving to one another as life continues outside. Savage then brings the two elements together, presenting the interior scenes individually at first but eventually overlapping both location and periods of time, allowing the audience to see Liam’s family and Albert’s home side-by-side on the same set. Most effectively, multiple versions of Albert from different times of day appear together as Savage establishes his unchanging routine, and donning masks designed by Russell Dean means the cast can play Albert simultaneously.
Savage’s story is episodic, however, and while enjoyable as a tentative friendship forms, the overall purpose and drive in Boy on the Roof takes some time to establish itself. Liam is misunderstood by his family, and the show points to neurodiversity, but there could be a greater sense of the pressure of external criticism weighing him down before the dramatic finale. Likewise, Liam’s quite sudden misbehaviour around Albert and a scene of complacency in their connection happen too quickly and need to feed that growing disconnection that takes Liam to his final act. Once there, the play implies a resolution but needs to perhaps tease out both the jeopardy and the consequences a little more.
James Greaves, Alan Riley and Gavin Maxwell are great physical performers, imbuing their characters with plenty of personality and a great deal of empathy – Greaves’s slightly sarcastic Dad is particularly well-pitched. Getting on the roof is one thing, getting down is quite another so while Savage’s production is full of theatrical technique and invention, its story needs to at least imply where all the characters go from here.
Runs until 4 February 2024 and continues to tour
The Reviews Hub Score
Delightful invention
